


Domino the Destitute

by JovialHarp5159



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, But with a happy ending, M/M, Mentions of Sexual Content, Pre-Canon, Pre-Serum, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, of sorts, songfic kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 08:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11376195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JovialHarp5159/pseuds/JovialHarp5159
Summary: Bucky has always been the more level-headed of the two, he rarely lets his feelings run away with him, and God bless him, he has patience for miles. Usually. But, as his grey eyes cloud over with an unreadable emotion, Steve thinks that maybe possibly, tonight is out of the spectrum of normal, and he’s dealing with an entirely different James Barnes.





	Domino the Destitute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XfirefirafiragaX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XfirefirafiragaX/gifts).



> Soooooo I have like a thousand and ten kinds of Stucky feels, so have this. The inspiration of this fic is Coheed and Cambrias Key Entity Extraction I: Domino the Destitute. If you haven't heard it before you should! quotes from the song used in this fic are "Hey, I'm no angel, or the devil of your conscience, to tell you to be good, bad, ugly, or otherwise." "ladies and broken gentlemen, the undisputed champ of misery" and "and in this corner, we find his challenger, the pride of utopia, the greatest thing ever." this work was done as a request on Tumblr.

As Saturday nights, go, it’s a relatively run of the mill one, for Steve. He sits at his favorite spot, on the windowsill, sketching absently, trying to capture the way the world outside is eerily hushed and vacant. The tiny shoebox apartment that he shared with his best friend is drafty, and he shivers absently, curling in more on himself. He’s just turning blue eyes back out the window, when the living room door is thrown open and bounces off of the wall with a resounding thud. He jumps, and accidentally digs the pencil into the page, snapping the lead off. _‘fuck’_ he thinks absently, that’s his best pencil, and it’s already shorter than he’d like.

“Hey Stevie!” comes a too loud, slightly slurred call from behind him, and Steve whirls around, to see Bucky standing behind him with a self-sufficing grin, and a busted lip. Steve has a reputation for not knowing when to back down, but Bucky is just as bad as he is. He, however avoids the infamy, because he’s a lot less likely to get his ass handed to him, which clearly wasn’t the case today. Steve narrows his eyes at Bucky, calculatingly.

“The hell happened to you, Buck?” The insufferable git just laughs harder, and shrugs.

“Picked a fight with Thomas from down the street. Y’know, that bastard throws a mean left hook? Fuckin’ southpaw” Steve does know, he’s suffered that left hook firsthand once or twice, truth be told, Thomas is an asshole, but he and Bucky get along. Usually.

“ _You’re_ a southpaw, pal.” Bucky smirks, but says nothing, and Steve sighs internally. So he’s gonna make him claw it out of him.  “This is the third fight you’ve gotten into this week, you’re givin’ me a run for my money Buck, you that desperate to get killed?” the asshole laughs, and that sets Steve on edge for reasons that he can’t identify. “Seriously, Buck, I’m tired of watchin’ you bleed all over the place.”

Bucky has always been the more level-headed of the two, he rarely lets his feelings run away with him, and God bless him, he has patience for miles. Usually. But, as his grey eyes cloud over with an unreadable emotion, Steve thinks that maybe possibly, tonight is out of the spectrum of normal, and he’s dealing with an entirely different James Barnes.

“Rich, comin’ from you, Steven.” Steve blinks slowly, considers the situation. The use of his full name is uncommon, and out of character, like so much about the night already is, and it makes him wary. A weird energy hangs palpably in the air between them, and he feels the hair on the back of his neck rise in warning. He opens his mouth to speak, but Bucky, spurred on by liquid courage, and lingering adrenaline cuts across him. “I watch after you, every minute, of every day. I watch you get into more ridiculous, pointless fights, than I can count with both hands, both feet, and all the beads on a damn rosary!”

Steve scoffs, and shakes his head. “Fighting bullies, is a hell of a lot different than picking a fight with the neighborhood drunk because-“ a terrifying series of images come to his mind. He remembers the last time that the pair came across Thomas, stagger down drunk, and ready to swing at Buck. _‘stay the fuck away from her, Barnes! Unless you wanna see what your brains look like!’_ he had warned, as they passed him on the way back home. Dorothy is a pretty girl, a tiny waif of a thing, big eyes, and a bigger smile. Steves blood runs cold. “Tell me you ain’t screwin’ his girl, Barnes.” The look on Bucky’s face, an even mix of enraged and startled, would make Steve laugh, any other time. As it stands, he feels four crescent shaped trenches being dug into each of his palms, where he’s balled his hands up into fists.

Bucky and Steve have never gone to blows, but in this moment, the look on Bucky’s face screams that tonight, that could change. His jaw clenches, as though to hold back what he’s thinking, and Steve feels his chest start to clench up, crushed under the weight of the dangerous words that aren’t being spoken.

“Fuck you, pal.” He scoffs, shakes his head, and turns over his shoulder, to head into his room. The words are out of his mouth, before Steve can stop them, and he watches them tumble into the chasm of space between him and the only person in this world he’d take a beating for, willingly.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if you deserved getting the shit beat out of you. You reek of a different broads perfume every night.”

For a split second, everything is calm, and Steve can almost convince himself that he hadn’t just fucked everything up. But all too soon, the room depressurizes, and Steve swears to every saint he’s ever known, that there’s a scent of ozone. When Bucky speaks, his voice is deceptively calm, and still.

“Jealous?”

That one two syllable word digs at Steve. Fits right in between his ribs, and stabs at him with a pain more visceral than any he’s ever known. Bucky’s eyes flash, hard and determined, molten like quicksilver, and not for the first time, Steve finds himself wondering if he fucks like he fights, with the same wild eyed, unrestrained, untamable passion. He feels his face heat with color, at the thought.

“Jealous? Of the bruises you come home with every night, and the hangovers that you wake up with every mornin’? or did you mean of the nightmares you don’t think I know about? Jealous?” he laughs humorlessly, the sound acting as a cruel punctuation. “Nah, not really.”

Bucky’s face pales, and something, some emotion that Steve can’t read before it’s gone, flashes across his features. “You don’t know anything.”

Steve laughs, derisively, and holds his hands out in mock surrender.

“Right! How could I forget! Ladies, and broken gentlemen, the undisputed champ of misery, James Buchanan Barnes!” Steve sweeps his arms out wide, like he’s introducing some prize fighter. Bucky growls, outright growls, and takes an aggressive step forward.

“And in this corner, we find his challenger, the pride of utopia, the greatest thing ever!” Steve doesn’t like the sarcasm that drips from his tone, doesn’t like the way his grey eyes regard him like some insect, but he shrugs, forces himself to feign a lack of caring.

“Hey, I’m no angel or the devil of your conscience, to tell you to be good, bad, ugly, or otherwise. Get yourself beat to a bloody pulp.”

Bucky sighs, and closes his eyes, like talking physically pains him.

“I need the fights Stevie.”

This answer completely throws Steve for a loop, and the confusion must show on his face, because Bucky laughs. “You wanna know why I picked a fight with that fuckin’ lush? Huh?” he drops his gaze, and shifts his weight to one side, affecting a much more defeated stance. “cuz I can’t keep kissin’ strangers and pretending they’re you.”

Steve stands stock still, for a minute longer than he means to, which he knows by the broken sound that Bucky makes, before trying to explain. “Look, I don’t mean-“ as soon as Steve’s mind connects the pieces, like the worlds slowest jigsaw, he’s diving forward, wrapping his hands around Bucky’s face, holding him gently like he’s a precious thing that he can break, instead of the welterweight fighter that could probably break him into pieces.

As first kisses go, it’s probably a horrible one, all bad angles, and awkward height differences, but the laugh that breaks the silence in music to Steve’s ears.

“You’re somethin’ else, kid.” The simple statement isn’t derisive, or teasing, it’s warm, and it makes something unfurl in Steve’s chest that he vaguely compares to belonging. He blushes gently, smiling lopsidedly, and ducking his head to rest on Bucky’s chest.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can deal with that.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully that didn't suck so hard! Come join me on Tumblr, @thejovialkynnadyg-ray, sometimes I do things, like this fic!


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